is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe, Design Chair at Wildcard and co-founder of Kidpost. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired by Etsy, Inc.), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children. Refer to the advertising and sponsorship page for inquiries.

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Typographica Reviews “Just My Type”

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Simon Garfield’s populist introduction to the world of typography was released last year to good reviews and, for a book of this subject matter, surprisingly strong sales. I haven’t read it, but I really liked the idea of such a book; design has long needed a best-seller on the order of Lynne Truss’ “Eats, Shoots & Leaves,” which popularized punctuation, to help demystify typography for the masses. Unfortunately, designer Patrick Barber doesn’t think much of Garfield’s work. Read the full review here.

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I just read it recently and largely agree with Paul Shaw’s review of last year. Garfield tells some good stories, and paints a nice broad picture, but it’s neither a history of type design, typefounding, or typesetting nor a story about why type is meaningful and how it’s evolved.

The design is also uninspired. The in-line use of typeface names set in their own face was gimmicky. Either show specimens or don’t be cute. Same with the few-page type interludes, which would have done better with a design thought behind them instead of being set as they were.